purring to some new-born kittens. He knew there
were kittens because it was plain now what the tiny
squeak had been, and it was made plainer by the fact
that he heard another much more distinct one and then
another. They had all been asleep when he had
come into the cellar. If the mother had been
awake, she had probably been very much afraid.
Afterward she had perhaps come down from her shelf
to investigate, and had passed close to him.
The feeling of relief which came upon him at this
queer and simple discovery was wonderful. It was
so natural and comfortable an every-day thing that
it seemed to make spies and criminals unreal, and
only natural things possible. With a mother cat
purring away among her kittens, even a dark wine-cellar
was not so black. He got up and kneeled by the
shelf. The greenish eyes did not shine in an
unfriendly way. He could feel that the owner of
them was a nice big cat, and he counted four round
little balls of kittens. It was a curious delight
to stroke the soft fur and talk to the mother cat.
She answered with purring, as if she liked the sense
of friendly human nearness. Marco laughed to
himself.
“It’s queer what a difference it makes!”
he said. “It is almost like finding a window.”
The mere presence of these harmless living things
was companionship. He sat down close to the low
shelf and listened to the motherly purring, now and
then speaking and putting out his hand to touch the
warm fur. The phosphorescent light in the green
eyes was a comfort in itself.
“We shall get out of this—both of
us,” he said. “We shall not be here
very long, Puss-cat.”
He was not troubled by the fear of being really hungry
for some time. He was so used to eating scantily
from necessity, and to passing long hours without
food during his journeys, that he had proved to himself
that fasting is not, after all, such a desperate ordeal
as most people imagine. If you begin by expecting
to feel famished and by counting the hours between
your meals, you will begin to be ravenous. But
he knew better.
The time passed slowly; but he had known it would
pass slowly, and he had made up his mind not to watch
it nor ask himself questions about it. He was
not a restless boy, but, like his father, could stand
or sit or lie still. Now and then he could hear
distant rumblings of carts and vans passing in the
street. There was a certain degree of companionship
in these also. He kept his place near the cat
and his hand where he could occasionally touch her.
He could lift his eyes now and then to the place where
the dim glimmer of something like light showed itself.
Perhaps the stillness, perhaps the darkness, perhaps
the purring of the mother cat, probably all three,
caused his thoughts to begin to travel through his
mind slowly and more slowly. At last they ceased
and he fell asleep. The mother cat purred for
some time, and then fell asleep herself.
